


Crazy Baby

by EmeraldSoul



Category: Da Vinci's Demons
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Depression, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Suicide, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-14
Updated: 2015-11-14
Packaged: 2018-05-01 13:52:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5208263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldSoul/pseuds/EmeraldSoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by Joan Osborne’s song of the same title. Please listen to it!<br/>Riario/Zita one shot. (takes place before he is captured by the Enemies of Man)<br/>Zita's POV, but she is a ghost in this story, and has already died. Riario is back in Rome, and this is just after he attempts to reconcile with Sixtus.</p>
<p>**NOTE: This was written after season 2, when I had no knowledge of the events of season 3. Bear that in mind!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crazy Baby

He hadn’t been the same since he got back. It started with him just being quiet and withdrawn, but after a while, she got more and more concerned. Girolamo Riario was never one to be forthright about himself in any situation, but this...this was something different. He would sometimes sit for days on end by the window, doing nothing but staring out. She had never known him to be the contemplative type, always preferring business to idleness, whether the task was another awful errand for the Pope, or even simply researching his most recent obsession, the Book of Leaves. But not now. Now all he did was sit in idleness.

He hardly ate. Barely slept. When food was brought for him, sometimes it would sit and spoil without ever being touched. 

When he did sleep, it was fitful and only present in brief intervals. Often he woke up screaming or crying, sometimes both, though never loud enough for anyone to hear.

On one occasion, he went out and purchased the company of a woman. He made love to her almost robotically, completely without feeling or consideration. She left quite quickly afterwards, sensing that he was looking for something he could not pay her to give him. 

On one very rare day, Nico came to visit. Although the boy had resisted ferociously to bend to Riario’s will before their voyage, and still remained loyal to da Vinci, a strange sort of alliance had formed between them. A kind of mutual respect. From what Girolamo had told Zita of his childhood, she concluded he must see a lot of his younger self in the boy. The conversation had been halting.

“I wanted to see how you were doing…” Nico had said cautiously.

No reply.

“You must be walking better now, right?”

Still nothing.

“Maestro’s back to his old tricks…” the boy said encouragingly. A curious glimmer of brightness was detectable on Riario’s face.

“Has he...asked about me? Said anything?” Girolamo had asked, in barely more than a mutter.

“Sorry, sir...no. He’s preoccupied, as ever, with his pursuit of the Book.” And just like that, the light left Riario’s features once again. 

A few more awkward answerless questions had followed, until Nico excused himself and left.

He had tried to tease more than a few words out of the stricken man for a commendable amount of time, but the effort was in vain. Zita worried that she wouldn’t never get to see the man she had fallen in love with again - deeply flawed, to be sure, but insurmountably precious to her nonetheless.

He must have realized that his company was very trying for most people to tolerate these days. His few interactions with other people had been awkward, and he ended up snapping at everyone. The outbursts left him completely burnt out, and somehow more melancholy than before.

His mobility was also now severely diminished. His broken leg had left him basically crippled, for the time being. Where once a proud bearing and purposeful strut was present, a fractured kind of shamble took its place. It hurt Zita deeply to see him like this...a beaten dog, where once a proud and noble hound of Rome had been. 

Those he had been loyal to had forsaken him and cast him out; and those he wished to mend old disputes with had refused to be in any way associated with him. After all that had happened in the strange new world, he must have felt forsaken even by God, to whom he offered his highest loyalty. A man who had always lived to serve the purpose of others, even though that purpose was often deranged, was now left with no one who wanted him. No one to use him. To value him. And he had certainly not learned to do that for himself.

He decided to leave his sanctuary one day, and he never returned. Zita followed. 

\------

She watched him limp down dusty roads; tumble down, exhausted, in old ditches and crumbling buildings to snatch what sleep he could. She wondered why he had not found a horse to use. In his condition, surely he shouldn’t be walking so far...his leg was still weak. 

\--------

He had not slept for days on end now. He simply shuffled on, intent on some unknown goal.

Until finally he came to a stop. He straightened up like he hadn’t in months, stopping underneath a sky filled with stars and a waning moon. He looked towards a nearby river, and suddenly, Zita knew what he intended to do. 

_NO!_

All she was and had ever been cried out the same response. She moved closer to him, trying to reassure him that he wasn’t alone or unwanted, but instead worth a second chance. He passed right through her, completely unaware of her continued concern for him.

He took out two daggers, and placed them over the life-veins in his wrists. He smiled then. This was the first smile she had seen from him since the journey home, since his sad smile at da Vinci, and she had wanted to see it, but not like this, never like this. 

_Don’t put out the light…_

She pleaded with him silently, but then in one swift motion, the deed was done.

All that had been tethering her to this world faded with the last of her love’s consciousness, and though emotions were blunted in her new state, the pain she felt was still too much to bear. She curled in on herself, trying to relieve the pressure of the sadness, but specters do not cry. There is no purpose to, if there is none to hear them.

Releasing her hold on the world, she faded into the oblivion of the next life.

_Maybe someday again, my love...someday. ___

**Author's Note:**

> Well...I apologize. This was a mourning fic for all that was lost in Zita, and all the promise her character held. It's also a mourning for Riario's decision to end his life.
> 
> Here's the song, by the way:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebu9tkSrJ9g


End file.
